What is pagefile.sys used for?

pagefile.sys is the "virtual memory swap file" of Windows. Its function is to use part of the hard disk space as memory, first store some data in the memory that has been idle for too long on the hard disk, and then call it out from Pagefile.sys when it is used again.

The operating environment of this tutorial: Windows 7 system, Dell G3 computer.

Question: When I was using Windows XP, I found that there was a file named Pagefile.sys in the system directory. Its size often changes, sometimes reaching hundreds of megabytes. What exactly is this? document?

Answer: Don’t worry, Pagefile.sys is actually the “virtual memory swap file” of Windows. Its function is to use part of the hard disk space as memory. First, save some data that has been idle for too long in the memory to the hard disk. When you want to come back and use it again, you can then call it out from Pagefile.sys.

is a virtual memory file set by the system on the hard disk. It cannot be deleted, but the size can be set. The system can automatically set a virtual memory size based on the size of your memory. The default is under the system disk. Established, if your virtual memory has more than 1G, I guess your memory should be 768 or 1G. You can set the size of your virtual memory like this, right-click My Computer, select Properties, and select the Advanced tab. Click the settings under Performance, click the Advanced tab, and there will be virtual memory settings below. Once the virtual memory is set up, the performance of the machine will be improved. By default, the virtual memory is sufficient and there is no need to change it. If you want to make it larger, I suggest you set up virtual memory for each disk and make it the same size as the system disk. Alright!

pagefile.sys is a system file (Win386.swp under Windows 98). Its size often changes by itself. When it is small, it may only be tens of megabytes, and when it is large, it may be hundreds of megabytes. , so there is no doubt that pagefile.sys is a virtual memory under Windows. Its function is basically similar to that of physical memory, but it exists as a "backup force" for physical memory. That is to say, only when physical memory is no longer enough It only works when you use it. We all know that although hard disks are not as good as memory in terms of operating speed, memory cannot be compared with hard disks in terms of capacity. When running a program requires a large amount of data and occupies a large amount of memory, the memory will be "filled up" and the temporarily unused data will be placed on the hard disk, and the space occupied by this data is virtual memory.

In storage, the page file is a reserved file on the hard disk. When the data in RAM has not been used recently, it can be used as extended RAM. The page file can be read from contiguous blocks of data on the hard disk much faster than reading the data again from many different source locations. Windows NT administrators or users can reset the system-provided page file.

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